The basic pleasures I get from working on this kind
of a site are the same pleasures experienced by a researcher. Oh,
I'm not going to tell you that I don't enjoy being able to watch
lots of movies, because I love movies. How could I not and keep
doing this site for nine years? And I certainly won't deny that I
love looking at some of the most beautiful and famous naked chicks
in the world. Of course I do, just as all of you do. And, in fact, I
also get a lot of joy out of writing a good article. There is great
satisfaction in that.

But the greatest moments, the ones I live for, occur
when I can find some nude scene like Carroll Baker's deleted scenes
in Baba Yaga. I sit there in front of the screen thinking how I
can't wait to share this, because even Hef and his "Sex in the
Cinema" writers have never seen this before, and don't know of its
existence. That is my equivalent of an archeologist's joy at finding
a new book of the Bible, or the kind of joy a historian feels (like
that guy in Finland last week) when he finds forgotten film footage
of Hitler sharing his candid thoughts.

I came pretty close to that joy with The Soft Kill.
There is an explicit xxx fuck scene in this film which nobody has
ever seen.

I know that Craig Hosoda, author of The Bare Facts, has
not seen it, because he's thorough, and he lists all the nudity from
Kim Morgan Greene (all possible body parts) and Carrie-Anne Moss
(breasts) in this film, but he never mentions the wild scene with
Michael Harris and Judith Ziehn.

I know that the CNDb guys have never seen this scene for
the very same reason.

I know that the MPAA has certainly never seen this scene, because
they sure as hell didn't give this cut an R with an erect penis and
gaping spread shots, even though the action is pretty far from the
camera.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that the people who mastered
this DVD do not realize that this print does not match earlier video
releases or the version the MPAA saw, because the box is clearly
labeled R. The DVD guys don't realize this is an unrated version
with an extra scene not seen in the R-rated version. I suppose the
scene was simply cut from the film originally, and this DVD was
remastered from some previously pristine source medium which hadn't
ever been trimmed.

In terms of continuity, there was no problem in
cutting the scene. It was perfectly gratuitous. Michael Harris plays
a P.I. who used to be a cop. Harris is the world's horniest guy. The
murderer knows that, so he sets up a murder to take place in the
D.A.'s house after Harris has been boning the daylights out of the
D.A.'s wife. Sweet frame, eh?

The scene in question has almost nothing to do with
the plot, except peripherally. Harris is at a cemetery with his
ex-partner. While the police officer pays his respects to his dead
wife, Harris wanders off and hits on a nearby widow. Momentarily, we
see the scene of Harris and the widow (Judith Ziehn) humping away in
an assortment of positions that even the Kama Sutra didn't cover. At
one point, the widow is on her back, Harris grabs one of her legs
and flips her over with her legs spread as far apart as they can go,
in the process turning her genitalia to the camera. A few seconds
later, we see Harris thrusting into her from behind, activity which
seems like pretty standard soft-core footage. The whole point of the
scene was to establish that Harris will use any occasion as an
excuse to get laid. The woman is never seen again in the film, and
is not part of the murder plot.

But our subconscious minds tell us that there are two
things wrong with this scene, and these thoughts translate
immediately into words like these:

1. "This isn't supposed to be a softcore movie. It's
a thriller. Carrie-Anne Moss is in this film, and her
little daughter in the film is in a whole bunch of cutesy G-rated footage
with Harris and Moss and little duckies."

2. "Holy shit - this isn't even SOFTcore. This isn't
even simulated. This is the real deal!" When Harris pulls back after
a thrust, we see something that we should not. His erect penis
actually slips out of her and into full camera view!

Wow!

I mentioned earlier that I came "pretty close" to the
thrill of a great discovery. Why not all the way? Because nobody
knows just who Judith Ziehn is. She is a cipher. She has no other
credits at IMDb. A Google search unearths no other references to her
besides her credit in this film. You can't even see who she is in
this film. In the sex scene, you can see that she is a redhead with
long hair, and that she has big breasts which are probably implants.
But there is no good look at her face. In the cemetery, she is
wearing dark glasses and is seen from quite a long distance.

So...

It's a great sex scene between Ziehn and Harris, but
the true identity of this woman is a total mystery.

On the other hand, if you happen to be a woman or a
gay guy who finds Michael Harris particularly attractive, this film
could be the thrill of your life, because you're gonna see ol'
Captain Helmet, and you're gonna see him at attention and in battle.

Complete Spoilers Ahead

What about the movie?

Predictable, standard fare. Who framed Harris for the
murder? What about the evil D.A. whose wife was having an
affair with Harris? What about Carrie-Anne Moss, who inherited half
of a considerable fortune from the murdered woman, who was her
sister? What about the gung-ho, by-the-books cop who really wants to
pin the murder on Harris, because Harris was one of those renegade
cops who broke the rules and didn't even fill out the paperwork?
What about the ex-con who swore revenge on both Harris and the evil
D.A. after they teamed up to send him up the river?

Nah! All of those are red herrings.

Look for the one guy Harris trusts, the guy you would
least suspect. And then you can expect the callous, womanizing
Harris to fall in love for the first time in his life. And then
he'll have to risk his own life to rescue his true love and her
daughter from the incredibly insane bad guy.

As I said, it's standard fare.

NUDITY REPORT

see the main commentary

The scriptwriter did make something which I
considered to be a mistake. The guy Harris trusted steered Harris
away from one spot in his house. Up until he did that, I had no idea
who the murderer was, but once I saw that "forbidden" part of the
home, I knew instantly where everything would lead. I figured that
the guy's wife's death probably had something to do with her having
sex with Harris, and that was probably also why Harris left the
force. That wasn't exactly right, but wasn't very far from the
explanation. In my judgment, there was no need to give away the hand
like that, especially not as early in the film as that happened.

I suppose you might also say the director and the
casting director made a mistake. Once you see Brion James in a
movie, can you expect anyone else to be the murderer? I know you
don't recognize the name, but you know who Brion is. You remember
him as Leon, the stupid, ugly replicant from Blade Runner. One look
at him, and you know he did it. There's his sloping forehead, and
his grotesque curved nose which precedes him into a room by a
minute. There's his lumbering presence, his gruff grunts, and his
befuddled scowl. I don't even know what the crime is, but I know he
did it. If he's in a movie, there must be some crime for him to have
committed.

The Soft Kill would work much better if somebody
unthreatening and likeable, like Matt Damon or Owen Wilson, had been
cast as the crazy murdering cop. Both of those guys have been
brilliant and chilling as psychotic murderers (in Mr Ripley and
Minus Man respectively) simply because they seem to be such nice,
sincere guys. But Brion? He looks scarier without makeup than Robert
Englund looks after he's been transformed into Freddy Krueger. Let's
face it, whatever unsolved crimes exist in the world ... look
no further. Brion probably committed them.

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by genre fans, while
C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for
fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is
recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and we think that most of
them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know
that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below
C-.

Based on this description, this is a C-.
Predictable murder frame-up with all the standard movie
stereotypes. Interesting only for Carrie-Anne Moss's first
nudity, and for the crazy extra sex scene.